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St Kilda Road Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei 2 5 8 Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei explores the influence Forever Bicycles, 2015 Silver Couds and Cow Wallpaper Flowers of two of the most consequential artists of The assembly and replication of almost Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds were first Flowers in Western art history have the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on 1500 bicycles in Ai’s Forever Bicycles exhibited at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, symbolised love, death, sexuality, nobility, modern art and contemporary life, focusing series, ongoing since 2003, promotes an in 1966, along with Cow Wallpaper in an sleep and transience. In Chinese culture on the parallels and intersections between intensely spectacular effect. ‘Forever’ is a adjacent gallery. Propelled by air currents, flowers also carry rich and auspicious their practices. Surveying the scope of both popular brand of mass-produced bicycles the floating pillow forms displace the symbolic meanings; from wealth and artists’ careers, the exhibition presents manufactured in China since the 1940s, a work of art from the walls of the gallery social status to beauty, reflection and more than 300 works, including major new type desired by Ai as a child, and also linked into space itself, creating an immersive enlightenment. The flower is a recurrent commissions, immersive installations and a to China’s early socialist society. experience. Warhol’s Cow Wallpaper motif in Andy Warhol’s work, and figures wide representation of painting, sculpture, film, photography, publishing and social media. presents the serial production and the repeatedly in the work of Ai Weiwei, from repetition of found pop-cultural imagery at his celebrated Sunflower Seeds of 2010 to a Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei have each 3 redefined the identity and role of the artist spectacular scale. new installation, Blossom, 2015, composed in society. Parallels also exist between the Icons and iconoclasm of thousands of delicate white flowers ways in which both artists have transformed In this gallery we are introduced to created in the finest traditions of Chinese our understanding of studio production and Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei through their 6 porcelain production. artistic value. Both are also renowned for their engagement with self-portraiture and Drawings engagement with media and communications, self-representation, and through some Andy Warhol’s and Ai Weiwei’s practices, like and for the cultivation of celebrity and their of their most iconic, performative and those of many artists, began with a strong 9 own persona, in order to speak to social iconoclastic works. interest in drawing, with a focus here upon Life on film contexts beyond the world of art. The exhibition is a dialogue between artists Warhol’s drawings of the 1950s and Ai’s from Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei have both the late 1970s. engaged experimental filmmaking to explore from different cultural contexts encompassing 4 ‘a tale of two cities’ – New York and Beijing. the scale, rhythm and urban life of New Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei reflects the time and Photography: New York / Beijing York and Beijing, respectively. Rather than place of the artist through the activities of two Andy Warhol fanatically recorded his 7 capturing fleeting experiences, both artists exemplary figures: one representing twentieth- everyday life on audiotape, celluloid and Duchamp and the readymade have documented these cities through long- century modernity and the ‘American century’; photographic film. His photographs of the The enigmatic French artist and pioneer form films which serve as time capsules of the other our twenty-first century moment and 1970s and 1980s provide an intimate insight of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp looms urban life in periods of rapid transition. what has been postulated as the ‘Chinese into his social world. They also show his keen large in the art of both Andy Warhol and century’ to come. observation of the urban life, architecture, Ai Weiwei. Duchamp himself appears in advertising, popular culture and personalities Warhol’s Screen Test: Marcel Duchamp, 1964– of his adopted New York City. Ai Weiwei 65, and in Ai’s Hanging Man, 1985/2009, in lived in New York for a decade from 1983, which the French artist’s profile is fashioned 1 and his New York Photographs document from a coat hanger, in the form of a Chandelier with Restored Han Dynasty Lamps the young artist’s social context as part of question mark. for the Emperor, 2015 the city’s Chinese artistic and intellectual Chandelier with Restored Han Dynasty Lamps diaspora community, his participation on the for the Emperor, 2015, is a new work in a margins of the New York art world, and his series of light installations and chandelier commitment to social activism. forms that Ai Weiwei has produced since 2002. It is inspired by an antique Han dynasty lamp said to represent eternal life. 10 13 16 18 Celebrity The Individual and the State Narrative, myth and memory Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei pop-up shop Andy Warhol had a keen understanding of The relationship between individual Myths – from ancient parables of gods to NGV presents an inspired range of what might be achieved in ‘fifteen minutes freedom and the power of the state is a contemporary tales of cartoon characters – merchandise for Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei. of fame’ and actively cultivated celebrity. subject of relevance to both Andy Warhol are shared stories used to explain cultural Produced in consultation with the Ai Weiwei Warhol’s celebrity portraits are among and Ai Weiwei. In 1963, Warhol began customs and historical events. Andy Studio, Andy Warhol Museum, and Andy his most renowned works, and – along exploring the electric chair as a motif, an Warhol’s Myth series presents archetypes of Warhol Foundation, and designed exclusively with his Polaroid photographs – chronicle image which remains a potent symbol twentieth-century American popular culture. for the, the range features works by both his relationships with artists, socialites, of state disciplinary power. As an artist Ai Weiwei examines myths associated with artists and contemporary designs including celebrities, fashion designers, art collectors and human rights activist committed to the Chinese zodiac. His Circle of Heads (in t-shirts, caps, jewellery, socks, tote bags, an and friends. freedom of expression, Ai Weiwei has been Gold) reinterprets twelve bronze animal exciting cat range for kids, Ai Weiwei and a longstanding advocate of individual acts heads that once stood in the gardens of Andy Warhol inspired toys and sleep masks, of resistance against state, political or Yuanmingyuan, an imperial retreat in Beijing. souvenir teaspoons, and much more. 11 corporate power. Ai’s irrepressible impulse Letgo Room, 2015 to defy the omnipotence of state authority Composed of more than three million is illustrated both symbolically, through 17 19 plastic building blocks, Ai Weiwei’s Letgo his art, and through courageous acts of The studio: Factory and FAKE Studio Cats: Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei for Kids Room, 2015, is a new installation featuring political activism. Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei have each Did you know Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei portraits of Australian activists, advocates transformed our understanding of the both share a love of cats? Children and and champions of human rights, freedom role of the studio and artistic production. families are invited to learn about two of of speech, freedom of information and 14 Warhol’s ‘Silver Factory’ was legendary today’s most influential artists, and their the internet. Exploding Plastic Inevitable for bringing together artists and poets, feline friends, at the NGV’s children’s Andy Warhol’s expanded cinema and filmmakers and musicians, bohemians and exhibition, Studio Cats. The large-scale multimedia performance the Exploding intellectuals, ‘superstars’, ‘drag queens’ installation features artwork displays, 12 Plastic Inevitable, featuring legendary rock and socialites, as well as for the serial multimedia and hands-on activities. Cultural Revolutions group The Velvet Underground and Nico, production of silkscreen paintings, films, Andy Warhol’s Mao series addresses the cult was a sensory assault – an immersive video, music and publications. Known of personality surrounding the communist sound-and-light environment involving as 258 FAKE, Ai’s self-designed studio leader. Along with portraits of Lenin and numerous collaborators. in Caochangdi, on the north-eastern other political figures, these works highlight outskirts of Beijing, is renowned for its the influence of towering political figures interdisciplinary approach and post- at the height of the Cold War, as well as 15 industrial modes of production as well as the basis of their fame in the repetition Caonima Style for its innovative, experimental approach of their images. In the aftermath of the This new wallpaper design and to materials and technologies. Ai also Cultural Revolution, avant-garde artists in accompanying floating balloon works have plays host to teams of researchers and China embraced a wide range of aesthetic been developed by Ai Weiwei specifically craftspeople, architects, designers and positions, including pop and postmodern for this exhibition, in response to Warhol’s archivists, activists and assistants, and critiques of socialist realism, to recalibrate Silver Clouds and Cow Wallpaper. Caonima is known for his strategic use of social the historical images and propaganda that – the Chinese characters translate as ‘Grass media. A selection of books, films, music, had preceded them. Mud Horse’– is a Chinese colloquialism television programs and social media for alpaca. The image of the Grass Mud is complemented in these galleries by Horse, here accompanied by the Twitter interactive touch-screens providing access bird, was popularised on the internet by to Andy Warhol’s wider filmography, and Chinese internet users as an expression an extensive selection of films, videos and of discontent and a subversive double documentaries by and about Ai Weiwei. entendre – used in place of an expletive – to mock government censorship.